But these times of decline of the written literature are at once the times of the greatest flourishing of the unwritten literature of the people. The old pre-christian religious and secular songs and tales were not forgotten, and the active, warlike life of the nation created an immense mass of epic folk-lore dumy, which was sung by by wandering minstrels (kobzar, bandurist). Toward the end of the 18th Century, when the political and national destruction of the Ukrainian nation seemed inevitable, the Ukrainian popular literature reached such a high stage of development that it awoke the educated classes of the nation to new literary life.
Through the introduction of the pure popular speech into Ukrainian Literature (by Kotlarevsky, in 1798), and thru the great influence of the popular literature, the foundation was laid for an unanticipated rise of Ukrainian Literature. In the course of the 19th Century the history of Ukrainian Literature has a number of great poets and prose writers to show, who would be a credit even to the greatest literatures of the world (Shevchenko, Vovchok, Kulish, Fedkovich, Franko, Mirni, Kotsiubinsky, Vinnichenko and others), as well as a considerable number of lesser poets. Great versatility characterizes the works of Ukrainian Literature in th'e 19th Century, and in the 20th Century its development in all directions is making giant strides.
The second half of the 19th Century was also marked by a very active study of the sciences, leading to the founding of two learned bodies very much along the plan of the so-called "Academies" (in Lemberg and Kiev). In every branch of human knowledge the Ukrainians can already point to publications, books and dissertations in their own language.
The versatility and richness of Ukrainian Literature assure it a prominent place among Slavonic literatures, thus furnishing proof, if any is needed, that the Ukrainian language is not a mere dialect, but a civilized language in every sense of the word; and the testimony of Ukrainian scholarship strengthens the case beyond a doubt. For surely nobody could d iscuss problems of higher mathematics, biology or geomorphology in a dialect analogous to the Provencal or Low German.
The rise of the Ukrainian literary language from the speech of the common people makes clear that it will be an admirable means of educating the race, in view of its wellknown intelligence, into an enlightened and progressive nation. But the Russian government has been thoroughly aware of this, and for fear of national separatism, has left no stone unturned in its efforts to stop the development of Ukrainian Literature and, finally, by the famous ukase of the Czar of the year 1876 has forbidden absolutely the publication of any writings in the Ukrainian language. None but a really living and significant literature could have survived these thirty years (1876 — 1905) of repression, and Ukrainian Literature has stood the test!
Historico-Political Traditions and Aspirations of the Ukrainians
Anthropological and lingual distinguishing characteristics are not sufficient to make a race into a nation. An individual nation, whether it be a Staatsnation or a Kulturnation, must have its own historical, tradition, its own sacrifices and heroes, its own historical griefs and joys. These are the basis of the united aspiration to an ideal of the future, of that constant plebescite which E. Renan regards as the thing which makes a race into a nation.
Now it is really the historico-political traditions which are very strongly developed in the Ukrainians. The story of his fatherland, full of the most terrible catastrophes, with the frightful Tatar menace and the oppression enduring for centuries, still lives in the consciousness of even the most uneducated Ukrainian. How few happy moments does the history of the Ukraine present, and yet no people in the world so dearly loves its past and so piously honors its national heroes as the Ukrainian People. And in this connection I do not mean the educated Ukrainians who know the history of their country, but the illiterate peasant, who recalls in his songs the naval expeditions to Constantinople, the old princes of the Kiev dynasty, the hetmans, and the great commanders of the Cossack period.
It is the historico-political tradition, living even in the lowest ranks of the nation, that gives the Ukrainians their most important indications of separate national existence.